Smartphone Use: Out Beyond Judgement

I said I didn’t want a microwave. It was against my whole foods ethos. Now it’s in regular use in my house. I said I didn’t want email. It was against my communicate-directly-with-people principles. I now can’t imagine living without it. I said I wasn’t a social media sort of person. Yup, I’m addicted.

A few years ago I was still holding out against smartphones. They were and still are expensive to use. I explained to my kids that back when their dad and I got married our phone bill was $18 a month. That did nothing but provide more evidence of my dinosaur-ness. Eventually I capitulated and got a smart phone. (I was assured my phone cost nothing with our teen/young adult kids pitching in for the cost of their phones.) Of course once I got sucked into the smartphone world I was unable to go back. And I don’t want to go back.

It’s heartening to see how pivotal mobile phones are in the developing world. Globally, almost 95 percent of households have access to a cell phone and it’s projected that 15 percent of families in Africa and the Middle East will soon have smartphones. They’re used for banking, business, texting, taking pictures, social networking, accessing information, and much more —- connecting and improving lives.

Smartphones are also advancing social justice because we’re able to document abuses of power. The Exxon/Mobil pipeline rupture in Mayflower, Arkansas spilling over 200, 000 gallons of tar sands crude oil (while media access was limited) would have been largely unknown if not shared by residents. Circumstances around the tragic deaths of Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Philandro Castile, and too many others at the hands of police would have been largely unknown other than by their official reports. Because we can share what we’re seeing, people the media usually ignores are able to more fully tell their own truths

But I haven’t adjusted to how smartphones affect person-to-person interactions. I belong to several groups which meet regularly. There’s always one person, sometimes more than one, who spends a large part of our meeting time looking at his/her phone.

I understand, really, In the years since I’ve had a smart phone I’ve been entangled in all sorts of this-message-could-be-important moments. A family member in the hospital, a publication going to press, a kid with car trouble. So I check. Of course I check. Sometimes I put the phone on my lap for a quick glimpse at messages as if I’m not staring at my crotch, Sometimes I just fess up that I have to look, at least when I’m with friends. But here’s the thing. My sense of urgency rarely, if ever, matches the number of times I’ve prioritized my phone.

One study shows the mere presence of a smartphone impairs our sense of connection to the people right next to us. There’s something about the phone itself, ready to shudder with a text or update, that diverts our attention.

I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten more and more distracted simply because there are so many more options for distraction. In an essay titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Nicholas Carr writes that being online has retrained his mind to “…take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

For kids raised in the digital age, this may happen early on. A preliminary studysuggests that when parents of one-year-olds get distracted (typically by their phones) while playing with their babies, their babies have shorter attention spans. Babies with the shortest attention span were those whose parents were disengaged or distracted. (There’s a happy medium though, because babies with parents who were overly intrusive and directive in play also had a lower attention span. Sort of like the porridge that’s not too hot or cold, it’s the parents letting the baby take the lead who foster greater attentiveness.)

This is a problem because most of us, parents included, spend a lot of time looking at screens. One study watched parents interacting with young children at fast food restaurants. Researchers observed a total of 55 caregivers who were eating with one or more children. Forty used a mobile device at some point. Most got out their phones right away. Some used it intermittently, some stayed on for most of the meal. The study also found that parents on their smartphones are more likely to react harshly to children. (How preoccupied were the parents? None of them even noticed they were being watched by the study’s observers.)

Too much of this can disrupt connection, shut down conversation, and diminish attunement between parent and child. That’s not to say parents should spend every moment gazing in adoration at their kids, but it’s through engaged face-to-face connection with the primary people in their lives that kids learn to pick up on social cues, develop self-regulation, read other people’s emotions, build vocabulary, share ideas, and much more. And let’s not forget, children with a close sense of connection grow up feeling they are worthy.

Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair, author of The Big Disconnect, was so troubled by what she saw in her clinical practice that she decided to interview 1,000 kids between the ages of four and 18 to gauge their reactions to parents’ mobile phone use. Again and again she heard kids talk about their feelings with the same words: “sad, mad, angry, and lonely.” Kids know full well that people looking at their phones are not really with us.

It helps to remember that the choices we make over and over actually rewire our brains to prefer that choice. It’s the neurological equivalent of driving along the exact same tracks in a dirt road, making ruts deeper and deeper until it’s nearly impossible to steer a different course. It’s easy to create these mental ruts thanks to dopamine, our brain’s feel-good chemical. We’re wired to get a rush of dopamine from all sorts of everyday delights. A problem solved, a smile across the room, a kiss, a hug—zing goes the dopamine reward. That’s also true of a tweet—zing. A text—zing. Zing zing zing thanks to Instagram, channel flipping, online games. The previous hit of dopamine increases the need for another one. Pretty soon we’re addicted to the dopamine rush, driving our brains into an ever deeper rut. I try to remind myself of this when tempted to pull out my phone to use up a few minutes while waiting in line, instead rewiring my mind to look around me and live in the moment exactly where I am.

Our phones are here to stay. They put us in touch with people important to us and to ideas that capture us. They’re so new to the human experience that we’re just beginning to learn how to balance them with the lives we want to live. It doesn’t help to label our use as good or bad. It helps to step out into the field beyond, sharing what works for us.

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11 thoughts on “Smartphone Use: Out Beyond Judgement”

For me, it’s very easy to “find a balance.” If there’s a real, live person available, I talk to them and ignore my cell phone. If I absolutely have to get a message to someone, for example, “I’m in the hospital” I send a text message. My cell phone inbox states clearly, “this phone is for outgoing calls only.” Incoming calls still use my land line. If someone else is put in the hospital, they send a text message. On the other hand, I’m older than most — I still remember the days when rural areas had party lines — but I have friends of all ages, and all of my friends seem willing to respect my desires.

For myself, I feel I’ve achieved a balance. I’m perfectly able to leave the house without my phone to shop for groceries, go to the library or head to the swimming pool. For places where there will be tedious waiting, such as the doctor’s office or some public service, I take the phone and play a little sudoku online. I refuse Twitter, Facebook and other twitchy online delights. My emails are allowed to mount up unchecked until I have time when it will not be antisocial to look (but not reply, that’s laptop time). If the Husband and I go out to eat, phones stay in pockets, come what may. I feel I have a balance between the advantages of the technology and the benefits of real personal interaction, human to human. No stepping in front of fast-moving traffic for me because I was immersed in the latest digital idiocy (Pokemon Go, I’m looking at you!)

When I was a teen, cell phones were just starting to get big. Despite a lack of the distraction, I still spent all of my time with my nose plastered to a book or spacing out. During class, with family, I didn’t have friends, but all of my time was spent distracted by something. All of it. My parents were also very disconnected. We ate dinners in silence most of the time. When they did talk, they did not engage the children in conversation, they talked between themselves and got angry when we tried to contribute. I don’t think cell phones are THE problem, I think like any addiction, they’re a replacement for something we lack. If it wasn’t cell phones, it’d be something else. It’s great to talk about the prevalence of the problem and push against it as a cultural issue, but making them go away or even balancing them isn’t going to resolve why we flock to them in the first place. Modern life sucks in a lot of ways. I’ve stopped trying to limit my kids screen time because the fact of the matter is a computer and internet is cheap, finding a bigger house in a better neighborhood with safer streets, kind children they can play with, and local parks is really, really expensive and flat out impossible for us right now.

A smartphone is just another tool, and a tool, in itself, is neither good nor bad, it all depends how you use it. wandering across busy roads with your head down over the phone is plain stupid, and using your phone whilst supposedly socializing with people plain rude. But they have a huge potential, especially, as you point out, in highlighting political or environmental abuses, for example.

A friend used to say that her cell phone was a product of HER convenience vs a responsibility to be available 24/7. If I remember to carry it in my purse, I forget to take it out when I get home. I’m probably not normal. It’s hard for me to wholly accept a product whose manufacture is born on slave labor.

What most people are unaware of is that smartphones and other wireless devices emit microwave radiation, but without the benefit of the protection of a closed little oven. Those microwaves penetrate our brains and bodies, and our brains and bodies were not designed for this kind of 24/7 exposure.

Children’s brains and bodies are far more vulnerable than adults, and child cancer rates are climbing… As are adult brain cancers. Even breast cancers from people keeping their devices in their bras…

Have you seen the warnings regarding how far away from your body the devices need to be to comply with (the barely existent and seriously outdated) regulations?

More research has emerged each year about the health harms, and it is being ignored just like the health harms of tobacco and toxic chemicals were.

I recommend checking out the BioInitiative Report, Environmental Health Trust, C4ST, and other groups who are publishing or sharing some of the science, and then taking steps to minimize your exposure, like by turning off the wifi after downloading info, keeping them in airplane mode, and only using them when no wired alternative exists.

It’s especially important to keep wifi off at night so the body has a break.

It’s more like we are being used for profit.
I’m hopeful that enough people will learn something about environmental health soon and take collective action to demand health protective legislation instead of legislation that protects profits…
We’ll see…

Excellence once again, darling. As you know I am currently taking a 1-mo (or longer) break from Facebook, and after a week without it I don’t miss it AT all! Mindfulness is the minority in the screen world, and if I’m not “the change I want to see” then — well, hmmf, then I aint much. Meanwhile, I’m developing an affordable online workshop for Leaning into Light, on the subject. Might be geared toward parents, mamas mostly. Still intuiting the major feel, and content. Will share w/you when ready. Big big love and thanks for all you are and do.

Laura lives on a small farm with her family where she works as an editor while also slooowly writing one of the 17 books she alleges she'll actually finish.

She blogs optimistically on topics such as learning, creative living, mindfulness, and hope - with occasional drollery.

She is a regular contributor to such publications as Wired.com, Mothering.com, Culinate.com, Shareable.com, and many others.

She runs the highly informative Free Range Learning community page on Facebook and the entirely silly Subversive Cooking page on Facebook.
On occasion she tweets from the Twitter perch @earnestdrollery

Although she has deadlines to meet she tends to wander from the computer to preach hope, snort with laughter, cook subversively, ponder life’s deeper meaning, talk to chickens and cows, sing to bees, walk dogs, make messy art, concoct tinctures, watch foreign films, and hide in books.

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